Just wondering what are some of the more bizzare/unexpected finds on the seabed people have made in this job. My top 3 are:-
1) Skeletal human remains (in a crumbling kind of survival suit and boots)
in the Caspian sea 2005.
2) A kiddies pedal car Irish sea 2001 ish
3) A twin masted sailboat sat upright on the sea bed between
Sleipner and Draupner in the Norwegian sector 1998. Cable lay
job, boat was missed by sidescan and pre lay survey?
A hermit crab with an actual (legible label) tuna can on it’s back. Pissed myself for a couple of hours – it gets boring offshore at times doesn’t it???
Some years ago,whilst working on a pipeline inspection I had the pleasure of working with a supervisor who had just been re-educated,by new girlfriend to listen to Opera music, after hearing Pavarotti for the milionth time I waited till he went for breakfast and gave the offending article the deep six. Unfortunately two days later the rep needed to re-inspect spans and damaged joint wrapping and lo and behold the offending cd was lying face up on the pipeline How bad, Too sad never mind; but the thought and coincidence always reminds me that you can never be sure that your actions will never be discovered.
In 2001 we were doing a post lay inspection of a telecom cable and came across an ariel depth charge that had been turned out of the mud when the plough was burying the cable, ended up with a 4km re-route. 😯
Found a WW2 bomb once when doing a PL survey prior to a ploughing boat coming in. They were pretty happy about it cos the BDE onboard reckons it would have taken out the ship, plough, the lot. Apparently the field we were in was the flight path for bombers coming in to land that were crippled so they jettisoned the bombs. The field turned out to be riddled with bombs and still is. The tosser BDE and the client rep onboard genuinely requested us to dredge around it using a TP08 and asked could we poke it……."but really gently should be ok". Of course i did tell him to poke it……not the bomb
I once found a cooker on a prelay. It was one of the large stainless steel ones you see in a vessel galley.
Last year we were working in Norway and found a British WW2 anti submarine mine. It looked like a 25 litre oil drum. It was recovered to the back deck of another vessel. When they realised what it was it was promptly dumped back overboard. It was finally blown up by the Norwegian Navy.
We were near a platform in China and on the same face as the galley service door there were hundreds of pieces of ceramics (unfortunateley, not artifacts) & cutlery. Guess the galley hands either didn’t want to wash them or they were in competition to see who could throw them the farthest…
Found 2 toilets sitting at 8900 fsw looking for a suction pile we were resetting in MC in the GOM. One with the lid up and one lid down sitting perfectly upright. This was right after hurricane Katrina.
Pre cable lay – found a washing machine! It had to be moved out of the designated safe corridor… probably what the AB thought the skipper meant before he threw it over the side in the first place 🙂
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